MY FATHER, THE PANDA KILLER

Narrator Quyen Ngo delivers an emotionally intense performance in this raw YA coming-of-age story about a complex Vietnamese American family. The year is 1999, and Jane Vu is a 17-year-old who is getting ready to leave for college. She's living in San Jose with her 7-year-old brother, Paul, and their abusive father, Phúc. Jane and Paul's mother abandoned them three years earlier. The story alternates perspectives and timelines between Jane in the present day and Phúc in 1975 in war-torn Vietnam. Ngo immerses listeners in Vietnamese culture and experiences with her expressive, fluent delivery. She excels at capturing the story's bleak tone while evoking empathy for the family's intergenerational trauma, immigrant experience, and brutal family dynamics. The result is a difficult yet compelling listen. V.T.M. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2023]